Worksheet 23.

1
Radioactive decay
Solve some problems involving radioactive decay and halflife.
1 A sample of a radioactive substance contains 1200 undecayed atoms.
a How many will remain after one half-life?
b How many will remain after two half-lives?
c How many will decay during three half-lives?
2 The radioactive substance carbon-11 has a half-life of 20 minutes. A
sample initially contains 20000 undecayed atoms.
a How many will remain undecayed after 20 minutes?
b How many will remain undecayed after 60 minutes?
c How many will decay during 60 minutes?
3 A sample of a radioactive substance gives a count rate of 400 counts per
minute. Its half-life is known to be 3 days.
a What will the count rate be after 6 days?
b How long will it take for the count rate to fall to 50 counts per minute?

Cambridge University Press 2014

Worksheet 23.11

IGCSE Physics

4 The radiation from a sample of radioactive material was measured over a

period of
10 weeks. The graph shows how the count rate changed. From the graph,
deduce the
half-life of the material.

5 The table shows how the count rate from a radioactive sample changed
with time. Draw a graph of count rate against time, and use it to deduce
the half-life of the sample.
Time /
days
0

240

185

143

110

85

65

48

Cambridge University Press 2014

Worksheet 23.12

Count rate / counts per

minute

IGCSE Physics